


Beginning

by Severina



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tv-universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 17:29:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2660429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It must be a dream, Daryl thinks.  Too much tequila, too much of that rotgut home brew that Dave makes in his damn bathtub.  But even after he squints his eyes shut and shakes away the last of the hangover, the vision remains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's tv_universe for the "pre-series" prompt
> 
> * * *

The dog's barking rouses Daryl from his uneasy sleep. He twists in place on the tattered armchair, the headache spiking through his forehead and muddling his mind. Too much tequila, he thinks distractedly as he struggles to find a comfortable spot on the soiled and filthy chair. Too much beer. Too much.

The dog chained in the yard yips again, and Daryl lashes out with a booted foot. 

"Shut the damn mutt up," he mutters.

His probing foot meets a warm body – Merle or his jacked-up dealer, he don't know which – but the person just moans and slithers away from the kick. With a sigh, Daryl pushes himself into an upright position, closes his eyes when the room spins alarmingly and his stomach lurches. Definitely too much tequila.

He finds a bottle of warm beer amongst the detritus on the table, takes a pull to settle his stomach before staggering to his feet and heading to the kitchen in search of kibble. Ain't the damn dog's fault his owner is such a fuckhead. Stupid mutt still deserves to be fed.

He's got his head buried in the cupboard when the dog's barks turn to yelps. He scrubs a hand through his dirty hair before emerging with a half-empty bag of Purina, curses the fucking dog under his breath when he nearly bangs his head on the cupboard door on the way up. Damn thing probably got itself tangled in the chain again – nearly decapitated itself last time they were here – and not for the first time Daryl considers just unleashing it and letting it run off. Thing would be better off living feral than chained up and abandoned all damn day.

The throbbing in his head and the fucking dog's pitiful squeals make it hard to think straight, and he squints when he pushes through the broken back door into the daylight. The sunshine only makes his head pound worse, and he takes half a dozen stumbling steps into the yard before he really focuses on the scene.

The doghouse, leaning haphazardly next to the woodpile. The dog, some coon mutt, straining at the very end of its lead. And the man crouched next to the dog, blood soaking through his blue button-down shirt, bending over the animal and burying his mouth into the pup's soft stomach.

"Hey," Daryl says softly. He shakes his head, making sparks fly behind his eyelids, before he finds his voice. "Hey! What the hell!"

The man turns to him then, and Daryl takes an involuntary step back. The bag of kibble slips from his grip when the man – the creature – drops the dog and staggers to his feet. Even with the distance Daryl can see that the man's eyes are white and filmy, the pupils sunken to pin-prinks in the light. His chin is streaked with gore. But it's not until the man takes a staggering step in his direction that he realizes that not all the blood on the man's shirt belongs to the dog. The fabric is shredded at his midsection, strips of what used to be pale blue cotton fluttering around the gaping hole in his stomach. 

It must be a dream, Daryl thinks. Too much tequila, too much of that rotgut home brew that Dave makes in his damn bathtub. But even after he squints his eyes shut and shakes away the last of the hangover, the vision remains. 

"Stay back!" he yells out.

The man _snarls_ at him, and that's when Daryl knows it's real. Not a hallucination, not a nightmare. He didn't somehow slip into an alternate reality, no matter how alluring the prospect sounds when he's lost in one of those stupid sci-fi books. This is real. The man stalking toward him through the overgrown scrub-grass should be lying on a slab in a goddamn morgue.

Daryl fumbles for the gun tucked at the back of at his waistband, too late remembering that he'd dumped in on the coffee table the night before. He steps back, matching the lurching steps of the man, eyes darting around for a weapon before finally snatching a fallen branch from the ground. He hefts it in his hand, the tree limb thick and strong, and turns back in time to lash out as the man reaches for him. The blow connects solidly with the man's chest, sending him stumbling back, and Daryl fights back the bile that rises in his throat when something thick and wet slithers from the man's open stomach cavity to land in a sodden plop on the dirt. 

Daryl rushes forward then, no thought in his mind but to take the thing down. He lands heavy blows on the man's chest, his face, his reaching arms; slides in slick, slippery entrails as he presses onward. There is a sound, a high pitched keening that he thinks is coming from the dying dog, and his own ragged gasps for breath, and the creature's fetid odor coating his throat; and it is only feeling the jagged edge of the branch pierce flesh that makes him stop his frantic motions and press forward with determination, putting all his weight on the thick branch and only stopping when a fresh gout of blood splatters from the wound as the sturdy wood punctures the creature's heart. The thing – the thing that was once a man – twitches backward into the dirt, and Daryl bends at the waist, hands clutched on his knees, and is only aware that he's crying when he sees his own tears splatter on the dry ground. 

The creature's feet jerk once. Twice.

Daryl shakes his head and stumbles back when the creature rises, the branch still protruding from its chest. Its gums pull back from gore-stained teeth and it snaps at him, hands twisting into claws as it reaches for him. He stares unblinkingly at the sight until movement from beyond the creature catches his eye, and he sees another _thing_ stumbling across the yard, another blood-stained thing with vacant eyes dragging one broken leg behind it in the dirt. 

His paralysis breaks then, and he swipes a hand over his eyes before he takes to his heels, the screen door slamming at his back.

His only thoughts are of Merle and his gun.


End file.
